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Background: Citric acid-based bicarbonate dialysate (CiD) is increasingly used in haemodialysis (HD) to improve haemodynamic tolerance and haemocompatibility associated with acetic acid-based bicarbonate dialysate. Safety concerns over CiD have been raised recently after a French ecological study reported higher mortality hazard in HD clinics with high CiD consumption. Therefore, we evaluated the mortality risk associated with various acidifiers (AcD, CiD) of bicarbonate dialysate., Methods: In this multicentre, historical cohort study, we included adult incident HD patients (European, Middle-East and Africa Fresenius Medical Care network; 1 January 2014 to 31 October 2018). We recorded acidifiers of bicarbonate dialysis and dialysate composition for each dialysis session. In the primary intention-to-treat analysis, patients were assigned to the exposed group if they received CiD in >70% of sessions during the first 3 months (CiD70%), whereas the non-exposed group received no CiD at all. In the secondary analysis, exposure was assessed on a monthly basis for the whole duration of the follow-up., Results: We enrolled 10 121 incident patients during the study period. Of them, 371 met the criteria for inclusion in CiD70%. After propensity score matching, mortality was 11.43 [95% confidence interval (CI) 8.86-14.75] and 12.04 (95% CI 9.44-15.35) deaths/100 person-years in the CiD0% and CiD70% groups, respectively (P = 0.80). A similar association trend was observed in the secondary analysis., Conclusions: We did not observe evidence of increased mortality among patients exposed to CiD in a large European cohort of dialysis patients despite the fact that physicians were more inclined to prescribe CiD to subjects with worse medical conditions., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of ERA-EDTA. All rights reserved.)

In this work, the exploitability of rapid and easy to use methods for the evaluation of the antioxidant capacity (AOC) and sugars content (SC), through metal nanoparticles (MNPs) formation, has been proved and applied to apples. In particular, an AgNPs-based sugar quantification assays and an AuNPs-based polyphenols antioxidant capacity assay have been used as tools for the evaluation of apple extracts composition. Both assays are based on the ability of the analytes (sugars and polyphenols) to reduce the source of metal (Au 3+ and Ag + ), stabilizing, at the same time, the resulting MNPs colloidal suspensions. The AuNPs and AgNPs formation depends on the analyte structure and concentration, resulting in red (AuNPs) and yellow (AgNPs) colored suspensions. Both assays require an initial mixing step, followed by MNPs formation under mild conditions (10 min, room temperature or 45 °C), and the colorimetric response is easily acquired at a fixed wavelength (AgNPs: 430 nm and AuNPs: 540 nm). The analytical performance of both assays has been proven, obtaining good reproducibility (RSD ≤ 6%,), sensitivity (LODs ≤8.7 μmol L -1 ) and recoveries (91% -113.7%). The produced MNPs (AgNPs and AuNPs) have been characterized using UV-Vis spectroscopy and TEM, and the cross-reactivity between assays, as well as the possible endogenous interferents, studied. The assays have been tested on 42 apple samples, and the data obtained compared with those obtained by conventional methods (i.e. FC, ABTS, and ion chromatography). The proposed AgNPs-sugars assay gives results comparable (R = 0.915) to those determined by ion chromatography in terms of total sugars, and the AuNPs-polyphenols assay results able to assess the polyphenols antioxidant capacity, being correlated with those obtained by the ABTS method (R = 0.922). This MNPs-based approach demonstrated to be an excellent tool for rapid and facile analysis of sugars and polyphenols in apple samples., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)